August camps are rolling on and we are headed for not only the start of a new football season, but also the beginning of a new college football era.

With the first FBS-level playoff set for this season in the form of a four-team tournament, it alters the usual August storylines. Here are the big stories to look for as the nation sets its sights on Aug. 30, the first college football Saturday of the year:

2. Can anybody in the ACC challenge Florida State?If there is a team in college football that looks like a sure bet to make the first College Football Playoff, it's defending national champion Florida State. And not necessarily just because the Seminoles are the best team, on paper, in the country.

FSU returns 13 starters, including Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston, from last year's undefeated squad, and repeated banner recruiting classes have given the Seminoles an SEC-style stacked roster, but in the ACC. Nobody in the ACC appears to have what it takes to compete with FSU, which should be a double-digit favorite in every game it plays.

Perhaps a key injury, like to Winston, could derail FSU, but this looks like a sure-bet final four team.

3. What will it take to be one of the four?Speaking of the four-team playoff, what exactly will it take to get in?

Will the SEC be punished for having an eight-game conference schedule while other leagues play nine conference games? Or, would any one-loss SEC team trump a one-loss Big Ten team because of the perceived strength of the conference schedule?

We won't really know for a while. Until then, teams know they just have to win.

Even as we enter the new football era of the playoffs, this issue looms as the bigger one for college sports in general. Have we seen the last of the mid-majors that compete with the big boys, like a Boise State or Central Florida?

Texas head coach Charlie Strong gives a hook 'em horns hand gesture to demonstrate student celebrating rules for his athletes while speaking to the media at the Big 12 Conference NCAA college football media days in Dallas, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. (AP Photo) AP

5. A Strong start in Austin?Texas has never seemed more vulnerable than now.

With Texas A&M drawing recruits to its still relatively new SEC home and defending Big 12 champion Baylor making inroads in the state of Texas, new Longhorns coach Charlie Strong has his work cut out for him to bring the Longhorns back.

Texas has 14 starters back for Strong to work with, but is that enough to overcome Baylor in the Big 12 and will the new coach's strong personality start chipping away at A&M's recent domination on the recruiting trails?

6. Will Steve Sarkisian bring USC back?The Pac-12 has become a northern world with Oregon and Stanford dominating the league out of the north division in recent years.

But USC has a new leader in ex-Washington head coach (and BYU QB) Steve Sarkisian, who will try to bring the Trojans back to Pete Carroll-era heights.

Like Strong in Texas, Sarkisian has work to do to get the school that has its conference's most visible brand back to prominence. Not only does USC have to overcome the northern powers, the Trojans have to win back Los Angeles, where UCLA is the clear favorite in the Pac-12 South.

7. Freshman impact?LSU's Leonard Fournette is the most highly-anticipated running back to come into the college game in years. Why is that particularly notable this year?

Because we are coming off back-to-back seasons where freshmen won the Heisman Trophy, thanks to dynamic debut seasons from Jameis Winston and Johnny Manziel.

Fournette could be a leading candidate to make that kind of impact this year, but unlike the other two, he's a true freshman (Manziel and Winston both redshirted).